My Diorama
Missed Connections in Brooklyn
1
The train doors opened at Second Ave and Houston Street to the familiar smell of patchouli and piss
after climbing three flights of stairs I emerged into the hot summer afternoon sun and
walked down First Avenue towards 14th Street with three
small boxes cradled in my arms
It was July 16th on a Wednesday at two o’clock and the sky was burnt orange
and all the angels left a long time ago for comfortable air conditioned
bi level suburban dreams
I was on my way to deliver a shoe box filled with
carefully curated and orchestrated junk
other wise known as art
my art
11
After four months of trying to eek out a living on Etsy. com I decided that door to door
was the best way to sell my work, and so I walked twenty blocks south
three avenues east and forty flights up to make my delivery
She saw some of my stuff at a gallery in Bushwick, lived in a duplex in the
financial district and wanted three new pieces along with a sound
installation for a new show she was curating in Chelsea
I gave her 3 boxes, installation instructions and told her I’d see her
in two days at the opening
To be continued…
Her Two Cents
Stephen Harlow’s photographic montage of 14th Street’s Artichoke Pizza presents a diorama that is both realistic and other-worldly. Little slices and fragments of history, captured and preserved like a carefully curated collection of shoe-box ephemera, flit on and off. Each person, each object, each square of earth is frozen in time yet their stories continue indefinitely beyond out sight.
